


Patch Me Up (When I'm Broken)

by XOLove47



Series: Agents of PROMPTS [5]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Brotp, Bus Kids Feels, F/M, Spoilers, TFSN Coda Challenge, bioquake, episode tag to 4.15
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 09:32:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9998345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XOLove47/pseuds/XOLove47
Summary: Jemma and Daisy, battered and bruised, barely made it to Zephyr One. Safely aboard, they access the damage and make a plan.[Prompt fill for the TFSN's weekly Coda Challenge]





	

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt fill for TFSN’s Coda Challenge to bridge the gap between when Jemma and Daisy make it onto Zephyr One and when they enter the Framework. With that said, spoilers for ahead!

Once the Zephyr was up in the air and a safe distance away from the base, an uneasy silence settled over the plane. Tension was high in their unofficial mobile command center. The handful of agents that May’s strike team had been able to rescue were milling about, seemingly overwhelmed and trying to process their new reality.

S.H.I.E.L.D. was in shambles again, having been infiltrated and torn apart from the inside _again_. The feeling of not knowing who to trust, of being deceived was all-too-familiar for Daisy, but she could see the fear and uncertainty reflected on the faces of the newer agents. Many of them had been recruited only after the agency had been re-legitimized, so this was uncharted territory for them. They undoubtedly would be looking to her and Jemma for guidance, but if she was being honest, she wasn’t sure either of them were in any state to lead.

Daisy glanced over at her friend. Blood caked in her hair and shoulders slumped over, Jemma looked physically and emotionally drained. She didn’t blame her. Being attacked by and ultimately having to kill a robot with your boyfriend’s face would throw anybody through a loop-- and that wasn’t even taking into account all the other fucked up shit that had happened today.

Sensing her gaze, Jemma looked up and locked eyes with Daisy. Since being reunited outside of the lab, they had been practically inseparable-- never more than an arm's length or two away from each other. Daisy hobbled over towards her, but considering the adrenaline that had been coursing through her veins had long since worn off, each step sent a jolt of pain up her leg.

Emotionally wrecked as she was, Jemma still caught her grimace, “That’s it-- Medbay, _now_. We really should have gone straight there. You were _shot_.”

“Yeah, and you were stabbed,” Daisy said, arching her eyebrow. “We make quite the pair, don’t we?”

Jemma rolled her eyes and wordlessly reached out and grabbed her arm. The two of them supported each other and limped off in the direction of the medbay.

* * *

Jemma had made quick work of her leg wound, removing the bullet and stitching her up. When she had said something about her being lucky it missed the femoral artery, Daisy wanted to laugh. Lucky wasn’t a word she would associate with herself these days.

Daisy pulled herself up into a seated position, legs dangling over the end of the exam table. When Jemma moved behind her to examine the wound, Daisy was overwhelmed by sense of deja vu.  

Daisy winced as she probed the wound, “We really need to stop meeting like this, Jem.”

“You know there’s a simple solution to that-- stop getting shot,” Jemma said matter of factly, hands moving quickly to dress the bullet hole. “Because I don’t know about you, but personally, I’d love to stop having to patch up my friends, only to have them get hurt again.”

“You think I like getting shot? Hazard of the job, you know that,” Daisy responded, looking at Jemma’s leg pointedly. “How are _you_ holding up?”

Plastering a brittle smile on her face, Jemma shrugged, “I’m a little battered and bruised, but I’ll be fine.”

Daisy stared Jemma down, “That’s not what I meant and you know it. You’ve been through a lot today-- I’m just worried about you.”

“And I said, I’m fine,” Jemma repeated, this time with more feeling behind it. She looked down at her feet, before continuing softly, “Or at least I will be, when we save Fitz.”

Daisy nodded, “And you know I’m going to everything in my power to make that happen, right? You and Fitz are my family. And Coulson and May and Mack. We’re going to find them and bring them all home. I promise.”

Tears pooling in Jemma’s eyes and threatening to fall, Daisy knew not to press her friend any further on this. Just the mere mention of Fitz was causing cracks in Jemma’s carefully constructed facade.  

“On that note, I guess we should open that thing up and see what we’re dealing with,” Daisy said, gesturing to the Framework hardware that they had liberated from the base. It was currently sitting in the adjoining lab, waiting for them to investigate.

Daisy and Jemma walked over to the equipment. Daisy booted up the computer and pulled up the program on the screen, casting a pale blue glow in the semi-darkened lab.  

“Oh what fresh hell is this? This is the most complex code I’ve ever seen,” Daisy cursed, eyes darting across the screen. She normally liked puzzles, but this was a little much, even for her. 

Jemma breathed, “It’s so intricate. I’ve never seen anything like it. I would almost call it beautiful, if I didn’t know that it came from a book that’s literally evil incarnate.”

Daisy felt overwhelmed. She fretted, “God, where do we even begin? I’ve never hacked anything like this before. Can it even be hacked?”

“Let’s think about this logically. If this world is meant to be a duplicate of ours, we should already be in there somewhere right?” Jemma reasoned.

Daisy nodded enthusiastically. “Yes! We would have to have avatars in that world for the team to engage with,” Daisy paused for a moment, before barking out a laugh. “God, this is like Radcliffe’s own twisted, real life version of The Sims, isn’t it?”

“I guess it kind of is,” Jemma chuckled in spite of herself, before getting back down to business. “So, that’s the case… if we could find our avatars’ in the program and plug in…”

“... we have our in! Jemma, you’re brilliant,” Daisy exclaimed. “Writing a program to find the avatars shouldn’t be too difficult. It’s what happens after that I’m not clear on. We have no idea what to expect on the inside.”

“That’s the rub, isn’t it? By all accounts, it should be a rough duplicate of our world. Fitz’s decoy seemed to think it was a ‘better world’ and we would be together, but I hesitate to put stock in anything that _thing_ told me,” Jemma said, bitterness and anger evident in her voice. Before continuing, she scanned the screen, “I’m not seeing anything in the code here to give us any additional clues as to what this world looks like, either.”

“So we’ll be going in blind? That’s just _great_ ,” Daisy grumbled. “What’s our play here? We go in, find the team, convince them that the world they’re living in isn’t real and get them to tell us where their bodies are… all without drawing attention to ourselves and arousing suspicion from our robot overlords?”

“Basically, yes. Though when you say it out loud it like that, it sounds kind of ridiculous,” Jemma said, with a glimmer of a smile. “Oh, and we’ll also need to program a backdoor, so we _can_ get out.”

Jemma picked up the headset, inspecting it closely. A crinkle formed in her brow and she looked deep in thought, as she rapped her fingers on the metal table top.

Daisy eyed Jemma suspiciously, “I know that look. What’s wrong?”

“I’m just worried about the science of it all and what this will do to our physical selves. This equipment is designed regulate our brain activity, but one wrong move-- like if someone were to pull us out unexpectedly-- our brains would be scrambled,” Jemma said ominously. “Not to mention, what happens if we’re in there too long. The brain is a very precise machine, as is the body. It’s meant to be active and respond to stimuli. So if you keep the brain awake but the body immobile, eventually the body will break down.”

Daisy’s eyes bugged out a little bit, “So you’re telling me if we’re in there too long, we’ll die? This just keeps getting better and better...”

“You know, you don’t have to come--,” Jemma started.

But before she could even get the words out, Daisy interrupted her, “Stop right there, Simmons. If you think I’m letting you go in there alone, that Fitzbot hit you harder than I thought. We’re in this together.”

Jemma’s eyes welled up again, but this time a single tear spilled over and raced down her cheek. Daisy reached across the workstation and grabbed Jemma’s hand, reinforcing her words with the comforting gesture.

Taking a couple of steadying breaths, Jemma collected herself and wiped away the tear with the back of her free hand. She turned back to Daisy and said determinedly,  “In that case, we should get to work. It won’t be long until we reach Yoyo and the sooner we get in there the better. I have a feeling AIDA and Radcliffe aren’t going to be too happy we escaped and with the Russian’s resources and the Darkhold at their disposal, who knows what they can do? ”

“Agreed,” Daisy nodded, moving over to her workstation and setting down to program. “So let’s get to it.”

Their plan had a staggering amount of “what-ifs” and things that could go wrong, but Daisy had faith that it would all work out. This last year had taught her a lot of things-- but the biggest lesson she had learned was that no matter how hard you try to fight it, eventually, love will bring you back home.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me over on Tumblr @accio-the-force, if you want to theorize what's going to happen in the Framework!


End file.
